Jumping
by Demonic Nightmares
Summary: [AU] Strangely, the first thing that consciously ran through Roxas’ mind was that Axel must be freezing up there. [Swearing and dangerous situations. Open for interpretation]


It was a cold day in late October and Halloween was approaching quickly. It hadn't snowed yet, but the way the wind was howling around the street corners and through the branches of the bare trees, Roxas figured it was only a matter of time.

Normally on a day like this, with the dreary, grey clouds hiding the blue sky and the unforgiving north wind attempting to upturn anyone or anything unlucky enough to be stuck outside, Roxas would like nothing better than to be holed up in his small, cramped apartment. With a big mug of hot chocolate nested in his hands, his favorite thread-bare blanket wrapped around his shoulders, still wearing his flannel pajamas, and with nothing to do all day but viciously murder his brain cells with lame slasher movies.

As it was, Roxas' brother, Sora, had been pestering him for the past week to go to a number of costume parties, most of which were being hosted and attended by people Roxas either didn't know, or really wished he didn't. Sora insisted it would be good for him. Roxas protested that he'd much rather kill himself slowly. Sora said he was being unreasonable. Roxas told Sora he was being annoying. Sora called Roxas antisocial and hung up. Roxas huffed and pouted until Sora called back and tried again to convince him to go.

It was this attempt to avoid his meddling brother that had led Roxas out into the bitter cold, abandoning his cell phone in the hopes that he could postpone the inevitable conversation that he knew would break him. No one could say no to Sora for long, but that didn't mean he couldn't at least try and resist.

Roxas had had some kind of a half-assed idea to find a nearby coffee shop to loiter around before heading over to his best friend's apartment and commandeer the couch. He knew Axel wouldn't mind, seeing as how Roxas had been doing just that since before either of them had even graduated high school.

But as it turned out, none of the local coffee shops were open past 5pm on Sunday, leaving poor Roxas standing outside in no more protection than a light fall jacket, with the wind viciously and gleefully exploiting every weakness in the thin coat and giving Roxas more than enough reason to contemplate frost bite, or possibly hypothermia.

Wrapping his arms more closely around himself, Roxas stalked forward down the street, head bowed and grumbling about how much he hated Sora in that moment. Heading in the general direction he figured Axel's apartment block to be in, Roxas silently cursed everyone he passed with a thicker jacket than his, and every single jackass in a car that rushed past, warm and getting where they wanted. Assholes.

A few police cars and a fire truck raced past, sirens blaring as they rushed to get where they were needed, the other cars on the road swerving to get out of the way. People on the sidewalks watched them go by and muttered questions to one another. Roxas watched them speed through an intersection, causing traffic to stop for a few moments. Curious and with nothing better to do, Roxas followed the fading sound of the sirens down the road, through a few side streets and up to a frighteningly familiar apartment block.

Glancing around at the gathered crowd of onlookers and the assembly of emergency vehicles, Roxas felt his heart drop into his stomach. He recognized a lot of those people, and the address of the building, and that shock of vibrant red hair that stood out against the dull, faded brown bricks, even from eight stories away.

He could hear the excited murmurings of the crowd, a few of the jeers of onlookers and the police officer with the megaphone encouraging the man standing on the ledge of the eighth story not to do anything rash. But really, all he could see was his best friend standing outside what must have been his apartment window in nothing but his most tattered pair of jeans. Strangely, the first thing that consciously ran through Roxas' mind was that Axel must be freezing up there.

"Roxas!" He was startled back down to earth by the strange weight his arm seemed to have gained and the familiar voice of his brother in his ear. "Thank god you're here! You'll be able to stop him!"

Awkwardly disentangling himself from Sora's vice-like grip, Roxas managed to rip his eyes away from the sight of his best friend since before either of them could remember, teetering on the edge of death. "Sora?" He looked past his brother's shoulder to where Sora's two friends, Riku and Kairi, were staring up in horror at Axel. They were Axel's friends too, Roxas realized "What… What's going on?!"

Sora wrapped his arms around himself and glanced up at Axel, before looking away quickly, as if it were too painful to watch. "I don't really know. I got a call from Demyx that Axel was up there and he looked like he was going to jump, and… I just had to come. I, well I tried calling you but your phone just rang and rang, and you wouldn't pick up, and god, I didn't know what to do!" Sora took a shuddering breath, voice taking on a slightly hysterical note. "I wanted to go looking for you, but I just couldn't leave! And I… I…"

Roxas awkwardly patted Sora on the shoulder, having never been especially good at comforting, and feeling exceedingly guilty for leaving his cell behind and trying to avoid his brother. "It's not your fault, really. Just… calm down." Sora took a few deep breaths, regaining some of his lost composure and nodding when he felt he could continue.

"The police have tried talking to him, but they think the wind is too strong and he can't hear them, and no one wants to get too close in case they startle him and he jumps anyways." Roxas nodded, understanding the logic, but not really liking it.

Roxas scanned the crowd, looking for Demyx, a co-worker of Axel and his, hoping to get more information, when a voice rose above the murmurs of the onlookers in a jeer.

"Come on, Sweetheart, I haven't got all day!" Roxas' eyes immediately honed in on the small, blonde woman, another one of his co-workers with a nasty disposition. She was standing next to one of the department heads, a cold bastard who would rather spend his time with his test tubes than people and who looked far too amused by the whole affair. And, Roxas fumed, was doing nothing to stop his companion from egging one of his underlings on. "What? You afraid to take a little dive?" She laughed sharply and the man next to her chuckled.

Roxas' eyes narrowed, and his mouth tightened. Sora must've noticed his clenched fists and tense shoulders, because he grabbed back on to Roxas' arm and said firmly, "Just ignore them, they're jerks anyways."

Roxas just grunted and growled through clenched teeth, "What the hell are _they_ doing here? Come to watch the fucking show?" while glaring hatefully past all the faceless people to those damn bastards, laughing and taunting as if this was nothing more than a mildly interesting movie.

"C'mon, just ignore them, they're idiots, and they aren't worth it." Sora insisted, tugging insistently at Roxas' arm. Roxas was about to open his mouth and tell Sora that it didn't really matter whether or not they were _worth_ the effort it would take to pummel them both, he'd do it anyways, when Kairi let out a shriek.

Roxas snapped his head back up, eyes riveted on Axel, who's already precarious perch was becoming even more so with the wind tugging harshly at Axel's long limbs and wild hair, pulling him forward and causing his arms to pinwheel in an attempt to keep his precious balance. More women in the crowd screamed as it seemed, for one agonizing moment, as if Axel wouldn't make it, that the one small push he needed to topple off the ledge would be happily provided by the sharp, cold gusts of wind swirling manically around the corners of the building. In that one, long moment, Roxas could've sworn his heart simultaneously stopped and raced at the same time. That one, long moment before Axel was able to lean back far enough to regain his balance and clutch desperately at the protruding bricks in the wall.

Roxas relaxed slightly, letting out the breath he didn't know he was holding. The anxious silence that had filled those few, terrifying seconds vanished as everyone around him started muttering to each other. He felt Sora sag against him and heard Riku let out a quiet "holy hell…" as Kairi started sobbing slightly.

"Oh, god. That was close." Sora mumbled into Roxas' shoulder, clutching desperately at his arm. "If that had just been another second longer… Damnit, this is horrible. Axel…Why are you _up_ there?"

Roxas' eyes narrowed and he wretched his arm from Sora's grip. Sora started, eyes snapping up to Roxas' face, or, where his face should have been, but Roxas had bolted, dashing through the throng of people staring up in abject horror at his best friend not doing anything to help, just staring. Nothing but staring.

Roxas darted past them all, ducking under the police tape with his eyes set firmly on the front doors into the lobby. He ignored the yells of the police, doing his best to dodge past them all. He was only stopped once, by a thickset, blond man who was chewing on an unlit cigarette and gripping his shoulder with a large, calloused hand.

Roxas barely paused to listen to the policeman cussing him out before he swung his arm around and elbowed the man sharply in the gut. He let out a loud "Fuck!" and curled inward, his hand loosening its grip and Roxas easily yanked his shoulder back, running full tilt to the glass doors before any other officer might stop him.

Slamming into them, he fumbled for a moment with the handle before the door swung inward on well oiled hinges, causing Roxas to fall forward with it before he was able to regain his balance and slam the door shut behind him. He almost locked the deadbolt before realizing what a stupid idea that was, and dashed across the lobby instead.

Chest heaving, Roxas bypassed the elevator doors entirely, remembering Axel's stories about all the times the elevator had broken down with people still inside it and the fire department having to be called. "_A real piece of shit,_" Axel had told him, "_probably older than my mom_."

Reaching the door to the stairwell, Roxas stopped to lean heavily against the doorframe, breaths coming in short gasps. Other instants flashed through his minds eye, moments that hadn't seemed to really matter at the time.

_Axel dragging Roxas to the circus so they could sit through an hour of dumb animal tricks, just to finally get to the fire-eater the poster Axel had seen had bragged about._

_Roxas' tenth birthday party when the two of them had broken into Axel's older brother's room on a dare, and came across a box of porn under his bed._

_Axel getting arrested for having set a fire in a garbage can and Roxas having to come bail him out because his parents were out of town and the two of them spending the next hour in a coffee shop down the street from the police station, laughing about it._

And Roxas still couldn't breathe properly, and he could hear the police outside yelling, and he knew that Sora would be worried sick about him, but none of that mattered because his best friend in the whole world was standing on a ledge, eight stories up, in nothing more than his cheap, Wal-Mart jeans, freezing his ass off and about to kill himself.

So Roxas shoved himself away from the door frame and lunged upwards, taking the old, steel staircase two steps at a time, using his hands to help propel him forwards, feet stumbling, and tripping more than once. He still couldn't breathe right, and the whole time thoughts of _why?_, and _how come he never told me_, and _if that idiot dies, I'll kill him_, racing around his head, getting jumbled and confused. Roxas tripped again and came down hard, jaw bouncing off the stairs, hands barely cushioning the fall.

He got up, just like all the other times, and he looked at the floor number. The metal number on the door was shaped like a seven, and Roxas cursed. Pressing forward again, legs tiredly skipping every other step and arms shakily grabbing at the hand rail, pulling himself bodily forward. He rounded a corner, and watched the _8_ get closer. Hands gripping the wall, propelling himself, feet pounding the steep stairs, until he slumped against the door, shaking hands grabbing at the doorknob and twisting it.

Roxas pulled the door towards him, ignoring the annoying screech, remembering all too well how Axel complained about the only door ever oiled was the front, "_As if no one will notice that every other door in this place sounds like a dying colony of rats_", he remembered that one because it used to make him laugh.

Roxas staggered forward before falling back against the wall, leaning on it for support, panting heavily. His hands were still shaking and his legs felt like jelly, and he still couldn't seem to get enough air in his lungs. His throat burned, his palms were sweaty, but he forced his fingers through the motions of unzipping his jacket pocket and fumbling around for his key ring.

Roxas nudged himself off the wall and staggered forward, almost tripping over a lump in the cheap carpeting, but righted himself and surged onward, pulling out his keys and counting doors.

_There_, he thought still breathing heavily from the upward climb and the original mad dash for the doors, _813_. The door was locked, which was unusual when Axel was home, but then again if he were trying to commit suicide, Roxas would use any measure to keep people from stopping him too. Fortunately, Axel had gotten a copy made of his apartment key for Roxas not even half an hour after he had received it, and had even gone so far as to get it specially made with smiley faces all over it. Roxas had glared when Axel had smugly placed it in his hand, but now, he could do nothing but thank that stupid, happy, little key for its very existence.

Roxas shoved it into the lock, and turned it with enough force to make it snap. Swinging the door inward, he dashed to the living room window, paused for a moment to fight with the weird lock (another oddity, Axel never locked his window, hell, he rarely _closed_ the damn thing), before pushing it up and open.

"Axel!" He yelled through it, pushing his torso out through the window, "Axel!" He looked left and right before he spotted that distinctive hair about three windows away. Why would he go so far from his apartment just to commit the deed? It couldn't have been easy shuffling along the ledge like that. The wind whipped Roxas' hair back from his face, carrying any chances of Axel hearing him in the opposite direction.

Still, Roxas screamed. "Axel, you asshole! Axel!" But the redhead didn't even blink in his direction. From his new vantage point, Roxas could now easily see everything he had missed from the ground. Axel's ashen face, his white knuckled grip on the bricks of the wall, his wide eyes flicking around the gathered crowd below him. And Roxas knew, just knew, that Axel did not want to be there, that he did not want to jump and had probably never had.

Stealing his resolve, Roxas only glanced down at the dizzying height once before he started pulling himself out the window, intent on trying to get Axel to notice him.

Axel must've caught the motions out of the corner of his eye because he jerked his head around so quickly, Roxas was afraid the movement would topple him over the edge. Luckily, it did no such thing, though the momentum did wobble him a bit. Axel recovered quickly and just stared at the blond man half emerged from his apartment window.

"Roxas?"

The wind easily whipped Axel's muttered amazement across Roxas' face. Roxas nodded, motioning with his hands for Axel to hurry up, and attempting to yell against the wind, though he knew it was futile, "Hurry up! I don't know what you're doing up here, but if you don't get back inside this apartment _this_ second I'll come out there and kill you myself!"

Axel heard none of this but managed to puzzle it all out, as he moved forward, almost agonizingly slow, inching toward the open window and the man he proudly called his friend.

Roxas almost thought he would make it all the way, no problem, that when Axel managed to reach the last window before his own, Roxas swung his arm out as if to grab Axel's hand and help him the rest of the way. Axel reached out as well, taking his arm away from where it was carefully guiding his body along the wall to reach aimlessly in the open air. He knew it was a bad idea the second he did it.

That one, precious moment Axel's hand left the wall, the cold, cruel wind howled around the corner, whipping up the side of the building and jet streamed against Axel, battling with his precarious balance, and shoving him gleefully off the side of the building.

Axel's eyes widened, his hand groped for the support that was no longer there, and his legs kicked at the open air. Roxas watched with horrified eyes as Axel was flung towards him, only to topple off the edge.

He lunged forward, hand grabbing for Axel's and missing.

Axel fell, terrified eyes locked on Roxas'.

Roxas' hand groped once more, out of pure reflex than any conscious thought.

It closed around Axel's pant cuff. Axel kept falling, only slowed slightly, but now Roxas was being pulled along for the ride.

His foot managed to catch on the window sill. Roxas would always remain surprised it didn't break, or twist, or just let go.

Suddenly large, calloused hands closed around his ankle and a gruff voice yelled down to him, "Don' you fuckin' dare let him go, brat! And use both yer fuckin' hands! You think those pants'll hold him forever?!"

Not even bothering to look at their savior, Roxas latched on to Axel's ankle with both hands, listening to the police officer grunt and he struggled to hold them both. Axel squirmed as if trying to figure out how to make himself lighter, and Roxas yelled at him to "just stay still, damnit!" Axel did his best, letting himself dangle in midair with nothing but his best friend and a pissed off policeman keeping him from falling to his death.

The policeman grunted again and yelled for someone in the hall to "hurry the fuck up and help me! These brats ain't exactly light, ya'know!" and they must've joined him, because Roxas felt another pair of hands close around his other ankle.

"Ya got him, kid?!" Roxas nodded, even though he knew the officer couldn't see it. "Well, if you don't, you'd better! Okay, Leon, pull!" And the hands on his ankles tugged him upwards, scrapping his shins and knees against the cold cement of the ledge. But, after the initial momentum wore off, Roxas was barely moved a foot, and the police officers were stuck dragging him back into the apartment inch by agonizing inch. Roxas could feel the cold biting into his legs, scrapping against his thighs with his jeans doing nothing to protect him.

It was taking too long, Roxas' hands were sweating and he wasn't sure if he could hang onto Axel much longer. But he had to, Axel was the whole reason he was up here in the first place, and he wouldn't just leave his best friend for dead. Never.

The icy wind swelled with a vengeance. It tugged at their clothes, hair, limbs, making them sway dangerously in the open air. Roxas gained another foot or so, but he wasn't exactly the shortest man in the world and Axel was even taller than he was.

The police men grunted in unison, and threw their weight back, pulling Roxas sharply back in to his waist. The moment his feet found purchase on Axel's cheaply carpeted floor, Roxas began to help, struggling with pulling Axel's weight up the side of the building.

The two officers crowded to the window with him, grabbing his shoulders and yanking him inwards, before they too struggled to find a handhold on Axel's leg.

The three of them together tugged and pulled, and slowly managed to inch Axel's legs in through the window, enough so that he himself could help.

Finally, with one last, mighty heave, Axel fell backwards into the warmth and safety of the building, bringing Roxas down with him and falling on top of him.

"Heh, sorry Roxas" Axel grinned, exhausted.

Roxas ignored his pleasantries. "What the hell were you _doing_ out there?! You could've _died_, you goddamn idiot! Fuck's sake, you almost _did_! What were you thinking?! _Were_ you even thinking?! Do you have any idea how worried I was?! How worried everyone was?! You're such an idiot!" Roxas lashed out, pushing Axel off of him and yelling his face red. "I come over here expecting a cup of coffee, and instead I find you about to _kill yourself_! What the hell?!"

One of the police officers was fiddling with his radio, calling down to the ground. "Hey Yuffie? I've got two injured up here, send paramedics."

Roxas managed to catch this amongst his ranting, because he turned to the officer and said firmly, "I'm fine, Axel's the only one hurt, the hell are you calling in two injured people for?" The police officer just stared steely at him.

"Look, Roxas, it's not like I was out there by choice." Axel tried to explain, shivering. The larger of the two policemen grabbed a cheap, fleece blanket from the couch and passed it to Axel. Roxas realized belatedly that it was the same officer he had elbowed in his mad dash to get up there in the first place. That didn't stop him from fuming though.

"So what? Some mystical force just happened to teleport you outside your window?" Roxas growled, glaring at Axel.

"No, you dumbass, it was my mom!" Axel snapped back.

Roxas paused, hell, even the police officers seemed to be listening. "Your mom?"

"No, well, yeah, sorta, I guess." Axel sighed and wearily rubbed at his forehead. "It's not really like it was her fault, but she was over visiting and I walked her down to the lobby, and she was being all huffy about me not putting a shirt on, so I was sorta being an idiot, and I ended up locking myself out of the apartment." Axel sighed again and wrapped the blanket more firmly around his bare shoulders. "It's happened before, you know, so I just figured I'd open the window in the hall and just kinda shimmy my way to my window."

Seeing the incredulous look Roxas shot him, Axel insisted, "It's what I've always done when it happened before. But I guess my mom closed it, you know how she is, she's always ragging on me about having it open all the time. So when I couldn't open it, I tried to make back for the hallway window, that deaf, old ass in 820 had closed it, and I tried yelling for help, but the senile old bastard must've had his hearing aid turned off or something, 'cause he just sorta went back to his room.

"And I didn't know what else to do, so I tried going back to my window, when some lady screamed and then a whole lot of people just started showing up and the wind picked up and I really just didn't want to be up there." Axel sighed again, and rubbed agitatedly at his forehead, slouching forward and looking weary as all hell.

But Roxas wasn't done with him yet. "So you couldn't call me? Go, 'Hey Roxas, locked myself out, wanna drop by and lend me your spare?', take two minutes to ask a _friend_ for help? No! Of course you couldn't! Why the hell would you when you could fucking play daredevil at 80 feet in the air?! You asshole!"

"My cell was in my apartment! What, you expect me to take it with me for a walk to the fucking lobby?!" Axel snarled back.

Roxas scoffed, "What, and you're too good for the payphones now?"

"I didn't exactly have any loose change on me." Axel snapped.

"Right, because you'll walk down to the lobby without a shirt, but you won't carry a fucking _quarter_ in your pocket." Roxas growled back.

"Let it go, would ya kid? Yer acting like a fucking woman. You always this loud?" Roxas spun around, gapping at the blond police officer who was chewing his beat up cigarette like he hadn't just said that. Roxas could do nothing but flounder in half finished thoughts, no one had ever called him loud before. Hell, most people he met often said he was far too _quiet_!

A pretty brunette woman appeared in the doorway to break the silence. She was wearing a paramedic's uniform and smiled warmly at the two police officers in the room. "Leon, Cid, you called for a medic?"

Leon, the other officer that Roxas had completely ignored except to snap at, grunted and gestured to Axel and Roxas, who were still sitting on the floor. The paramedic smiled and quietly walked over, kneeling down and introduced herself as Aeris Gainsborough, before asking politely that Axel let her see his chest.

After a brief examination, she declared that he was in the beginning stages of hypothermia and should be taken to the hospital right away for a more thorough examination.

"Actually, I'm surprised it was just that. Considering how long you were out there, the height and the weather, I'm amazed you don't have anything worse." Axel grunted out something about always being immune to the cold and tried to stumble to his feet. Roxas sprang up and grabbed his arm, helping him the rest of the way.

"Thanks." Axel mumbled tiredly, slouching down to lean on Roxas.

Roxas scoffed and muttered, "That's what I'm here for, you dumbass."

"Yeah, but I'm a lovable dumbass." Axel grinned weakly and Aeris asked Cid to help Axel to the ambulance.

"I can go with him, right?" Roxas asked as Cid slung one of Axel's arms across his shoulders and pulled him upright. Aeris exchanged a look with Leon.

"Are you his immediate family?" She asked in her strange, soft voice. Axel grunted to get her attention.

"As good as."

Aeris looked at the pair for a moment, then smiled in wary consent. The five of them proceeded slowly out of the apartment, and Leon made another call down to the ground about Axel's apartment door. They all managed to squeeze inside the dinky elevator and amazingly enough, it didn't break down, but took them to the right floor too. Axel mumbled something about it being a miracle.

As they made their way outside, Roxas caught sight of Sora, Riku and Kairi out of the corner of his eye and waved at them. Sora sagged in relief and Kairi started crying again. Cid helped Roxas carry Axel into the ambulance, and Aeris followed, climbing in herself before the doors swung shut and the ambulance surged forward.

Roxas spent the entire trip to the hospital telling Axel how much of an idiot he was in a quiet voice, and Axel spent it grinning weakly and agreeing with everything Roxas said.

-End-

Was originally posting on LiveJournal, and I sorta figured it would stay there, since I'm not all that fond of posting the same thing multiple times. Then I saw how sad and sickly my account here was, so I figured whatever.

I'm also slightly amazed at how little I have to say about this story, considering it literally hijacked my life for almost three days (I kid you not. I did _nothing_ but think/write/edit this story for three days.), but it's been over a month since I wrote it in the first place, so...

I hoped you enjoyed it and wouldn't mind reviewing to let me know what you thought


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